C41
Kodak Portra 400
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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rangefinder-35mm
The Kiev 4M is a 1976 update to the Kiev 4 rangefinder line, built at the Arsenal Plant in Kiev, Ukraine. It shares the same Contax II-derived body as earlier Kiev 4 variants - the signature vertical-travel metal-curtain shutter and long 90 mm rangefinder baseline - but drops the selenium exposure meter found on the Kiev 4 (which had an uncoupled selenium meter on some variants) and introduces a standard accessory hot shoe. Without the meter, the 4M is a fully mechanical, battery-free camera.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 35mm format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
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Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
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Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
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About this camera
The last major Kiev rangefinder revision - the 1976 model that dropped the selenium meter but added a hot shoe.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 35mm |
| Mount | Contax/Kiev (Contax rangefinder bayonet) |
| Years | 1976-1986 |
| Shutter | 1/2s - 1/1250s + B, mechanical vertical metal curtain |
| Flash sync | 1/30s |
| Meter | None |
| Hot shoe | Yes (added over Kiev 4) |
| Modes | Manual |
| Battery | None required |
The Kiev rangefinder line began with the Kiev II in 1947, when Soviet engineers took over Zeiss/Contax tooling from the Dresden factory as postwar reparations. Over the following decades the Arsenal Plant released a sequence of variants - Kiev 2, 2a, 3, 3a, 4, 4a - iterating slowly on the Contax II design. The 4M arrived in 1976 as a refinement of the Kiev 4: the selenium meter was removed (simplifying production and eliminating the most failure-prone component), and a standard hot shoe was added to improve flash compatibility with contemporary accessories. The line ended around 1986 when Arsenal shifted focus to its medium-format bodies.
The 4M is often considered the most practical Kiev rangefinder for everyday shooting: the removal of the selenium meter (invariably dead on surviving examples) eliminates a false-confidence problem, and the hot shoe allows modern shoe-mount flashes without a PC sync adapter. The camera remains fully mechanical - no battery dependency - and inherits the same Contax-bayonet lens compatibility as all other Kiev 4-series bodies.
For photographers who want to shoot Soviet Jupiter glass (Jupiter-8 50/2, Jupiter-12 35/2.8) on an affordable body, the 4M is a sensible starting point: cheaper than a Kiev 4 or 4A because it lacks the "meter" feature that buyers sometimes pay a premium for, despite those meters being dead on nearly every surviving example.
Contax/Kiev rangefinder mount accepts all Soviet-era Contax-bayonet glass: Jupiter-8 50/2, Jupiter-3 50/1.5, Jupiter-12 35/2.8, Jupiter-9 85/2, Industar-26M 50/2.8. Pre-war Zeiss Contax lenses (Sonnar 50/1.5, Sonnar 50/2, Biogon 35/2.8, Orthometar 35/4.5) fit the same mount and cover 35mm. The hot shoe accepts standard ISO-standard accessories.
C41
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
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Kodak Gold 200 is a daylight-balanced C-41 color negative film with warm color, moderate grain, and a classic consumer-film look.
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